Thomas Jefferson UU Church and the Vihiga Children's Home in Kenya

The Vihiga Children's Home is located in the northwest part of Kenya near Lake Victoria. Priscilla Agesa, age 63, is the director of the orphanage. Ms. Agesa started the orphanage with twelve boys living in a dung hut located in the village of Gesimbi. The town was extremely hostile to the workers and children at the orphanage because of the fear of AIDS, and they were forced to leave Gesimbi in 1997, moving to a different part of Vihiga know as Jimagaya Village. Vihiga District has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in Kenya (currently 25 percent). Now, ninety children live at the orphanage and many others must be turned away because of the lack of funds.

A member of the Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church visited the Vihiga Children's Home where her daughter had lived for three months as a volunteer. There she met children who have been left with no family to care for them because of AIDS.

The home educates children in grades kindergarten though six. Older children attend free public school, but Kenyan law requires that all children must wear school uniforms and purchase their own textbooks and school supplies. Secondary School (high school) is not free, making it impossible for most children to continue their education. Because of the contact made first by one congregant at Thomas Jefferson UU Church, the congregation decided to get involved: the church now sponsors eight students currently attending secondary school and three more children are hoping to enter school under the church's sponsorship in January 2007. The program is growing, and with the support of the church and congregation sponsors, every child living at the orphanage will have the opportunity to attend high school or a trade school. Recently, twenty-five sponsors from the church visited the orphanage this past summer.
         
The Vihiga Children's Home receives no government funding. Thomas Jefferson UU Church members and friends provide their only ongoing support. The congregation currently has an orphanage sponsorship program, as well as a Medical Fund, Building Fund, and Education Fund to meet the needs of the children.

Each of the ninety children have a church sponsor who pays fifteen dollars a month for the child's food. Sponsors also send money for new school uniforms each year. Each sponsor writes letters, sends gifts of clothes, shoes, hygiene products such as soap and toothbrushes, school supplies, art supplies, etc. Each month the congregation airmails their gifts as a group, usually mailing more than 150 pounds of supplies and gifts.

The church has a yard sale each year to fund the children's secondary education fees. A church member has a large organic garden that produces vegetables, the produce, as well as salsa, pickles, and other vegetable treats, are sold at church every Sunday to generate funds earmarked for the Vihiga Medical Fund so the children can receive regular medical check ups, emergency care and medicine when needed. Usually $1,000 or more is generated from this activity each summer.

Over $55,000 has been raised to construct a new three-story dormitory for the children; this project is nearing completion. The orphanage employs six teachers, two care givers, a cook, a nurse, two guards, and a care taker for the cow and garden. To support the staff, another group of congregants each donate ten dollars per month to pay staff salaries.

Each Christmas the congregation sponsors send each sponsored child a box containing small presents. The congregation as a whole sends money for a large gift for the orphanage. Last year they paid for the orphanage to purchase a milk cow; this year they are raising $1,000 for new textbooks for the first through sixth grade children.

Last July a group of twenty-five sponsors traveled to Vihiga to meet the children and make improvements to the orphanage. While there, they painted the entire orphanage, constructed a play ground, and built forty double cubbies for storage of the children's belongings when they move into the new dormitory. They treated many children for medical problems, interviewed, photographed, and measured each child for their sponsor, and gave each child clothes and shoes.

The work continues. The congregation's next project will be to raise funds to drill the orphanage's well deeper so the children will have a more robust supply of clean drinking water.

Organizers of the project wrote, "Since we began supporting the Vihiga Children's Home in April 2004, we have sent funds totaling more than $92,000 for the support and housing of the children. I know it is overwhelming when you think about all the AIDS orphans in Africa, but you have made a difference in the lives of these ninety children." Principal organizer Debby Sublett said, "These children touched our hearts. We will never forget their faces and the love they gave us. They are our children now - we are all one family."

For further information on the work of the Thomas Jefferson UU Church in fighting global AIDS contact Debby Sublett .

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